


Crush

by tourdefierce



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Angst, Experimental, Explicit Language, F/M, M/M, POV Second Person, Self-Destruction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-06
Updated: 2012-01-06
Packaged: 2017-10-29 01:34:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/314405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tourdefierce/pseuds/tourdefierce
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After getting back to Earth after the Narada, everyone is adjusting to the severity of life. Jim sees something he wishes he never would have that ignites feelings he would have rather liked to ignore just a little bit longer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crush

**Author's Note:**

> For the purposes of this story, Gaila was saved somehow. Use your imagination. Title stolen from Richard Siken’s beautiful book of poetry, _Crush_. Many other lines stolen and manipulated from: Abigail Washburn, Walt Whitman, Twister, Richard Siken, The Academy Is..., Imogen Heap, Lady Gaga. A lovely thanks to my beta, luvscharlie.
> 
> Originally posted at LJ: December 2nd, 2009.

You're a reckless bastard. (Baby, you play with fire and try to get burned.) But life's a dare right?

This is a game.  
Right.

There's whiskey on Leonard McCoy's lips and you're desperate to be right. About this. But the doctor isn't in. (Oh no, we're gonna break some hearts tonight, love.) It's just a broken heart in a broken man with crackedcrackedcracked Georgia peaches oozing toxic waste. He deserves the rest you justify. He deserves to get away from the trouble of space for a while (from you and your space, your ship, your disease and darkness). You can see the bruises, (worms, Jimmy) and walk away.

It's still dark when you step outside. There are ghosts here.

Bye, bye baby.  
(None of you are angels.)

<3<3<3

The morning isn't actually brighter. Not here. (Jimmy, purgatory is where fatherless boys go.)

You order toast and think about your doctor. (The sign says closed, but honey, they're lying.) Bones is having coffee, black, near his desk. You know. But the headache in Bones' mind is crossing the galaxy, crossing the campus and burrowing like a fine hangover with consequences. (You can't sit down either, Jimmy. Hypocrites make good saints but bad heroes.)

You've gone and done something stupid. You bought the puppy. You bought the ring. (Hey, it's a game.) Breakfast is dry, but it stays down, not like last night. But things look different in the light of day. There is an apple in the bottom of your bag and you contemplate keeping it down too.

"Lookin' fine this morning, Ms. Uhura," falls out of your mouth. So does your smirk.

(crunchcrunchsnap.)

You close your eyes and eat candy apple red down the engineering hallways. (An apple a day keeps the doctor away.) Your meeting with the Admiral drones on and your PADD hums in your lap until you give in. (Hey there Napoleon, Russia's a big cold place.) Winona warned you about brass, charming officers and (beat your child) mean, townies with shiny, white teeth and oil slick overalls.

She had it bad. (You're a sucker.) But maybe you have it worse. (Suckerpunch.) You look in the bathroom mirror and see her face staring back at you. But there's not enough time because you've got another meeting with another Admiral, and then you're meeting your doctor for lunch soon. (Fetch it with full hands, Jimmy-boy.) He's starving.

(Never enough apples. Not enough days.)

<3<3<3

"Bones," you say and there's sunshine pouring out of your mouth. It's gooey and all over your teeth like liquid gold and kerosene. (Sticky sweet and slow like southern bees and honey.)

"Don't start, Jim. Clinic was hell this morning," he says gruffly, and you smile too wide. How could the clinic be full? There was no one here. No one left.

(Too much whisky and the men come a callin'.)

"Be nice to the sick people, Doc." You're playful and obnoxious, but you want nothing more than to crawl across the table and beat green, yellow and blues all over his do-no-harm face. (Not a heart surgeon. Not trauma. Not like this.)

Instead, you order waffles (don't choke on the syrup) and stick him with the bill. As if you didn't know.

As if you couldn't see (don't watch, Jimmy) the way he shifts in his seat.

Lunch doesn't taste any different than breakfast or any meals before today. You're pissed as hell. (Why isn't the world changing color? You saved the world. Isn't it yours now?)

<3<3<3

You're here for business. (No ice. These boots aren't for walkin'. You're barefoot.) Dig your heels in and breathe.

"Where is your doctor?"

You want to care that Gaila from Orion can read you better than your mother ever could. You want to care that she hisses out 'doctor' like you wish you could. (She could love you, Jimmy-boy. But you won't let her. You don't want her.)

"He's fixing broken things," you spit out, and swallow cheap vodka. (Why?) Bones hates the taste of anything clear. (Anything cheap.)

"But _you_ are here," Gaila says. You shrug. (You're here for business).

You're no one's forgotten patient. (You're not safe to take apart.) "I'm no one's forgotten patient. I'm fine the way I am," you say. She frowns and it's beautiful like real life, green and crisp. You turn away anyway. (You're a slave.) Gaila nods and that's that, across the bar with black frame glasses and a smile like molasses. Two more drinks that slide clear down your throat like hospital jello and you're up.

"He doesn't stand a chance," she says as she walks away. Gaila means everything. (No one stands a chance.) But there's blood in your mouth and it's not your own, but you're too damn betrayed to want anything else.

You pretend that you can taste Bones on those molasses (crimson) dripping lips. But you don't. You're a liar.

(You hunt. You hunt to kill.)

<3<3<3

You try to find the irony in florescent lights. Instead, you choke on dried, caked blood down the back of your throat and you throw the punch before you can open your eyes. (Phasers set to kill.)

"Goddamn it, Jim."

There's gruff words over your eyes and large, calloused hands that presspresspress full capable hand prints onto your skin. In other words, fuck. (In other words, the bed sheets have betrayed you too.)

"Would you calm down, kid?"

Your knuckles are raw and you hope you bleed all over his sheets. It's just a little concussion. You're sure. (Paging Dr. Kirk, paging Dr. Kirk.)

He's just fussing to fuss. He's just being a doctor. You're just being a patient. This means nothing. This means less. He doesn't love you. He doesn't want to save you.  
(An apple a day keeps the doctor at bay.)

<3<3<3

"Did you know that the body only remembers trauma and not pain?" you say casually.

Bones glares at you. You wink. (Lick your wounds.) It's just a bar fight. It's just revenge. You laugh and Bones grows stormy hazel eyes like the tornado skies of the Midwest. (It's the finger of God.) If the sky turns green, head for the underground, head for the basement and (baby) turn on the radio. (Where the fuck are the flashlights?)

"Gaila said you sought this guy out."

(Game. Set.) You lick your lips.

"Yeah," you whisper, and roll over on sore ribs. The pillow catches your words. "Well, he had honey on his tongue and it wasn't his."

"What in the sam-hell were you thinking?" Bones is up and looming over you with angry green skies. A thought crosses your mind.

(Maybe truth is better than apples.) You sneer into the pillow. Bones sighs, heavy and defeated, but you're not done. (Put your little white flag away, boy.) Your body rolls and you settle on your belly. When you turn your head you can see his face, but not what it says. (You're illiterate in love.)

"Bones, I fight men. I fuck women. Sometimes, I fight and fuck men. Or they fuck me. _I'm_ not picky."

You don't hide your accusation. (Fuck. You could tastetastetaste, but it didn't work. It still hurts.) You let sleep take you with Bones, stiff and doctorly above you.

(You're Marlon Brando.) And it's raining outside and maybe inside, too. (Wait, who's James Dean?) Fingertips are cool on your forehead, but it feels like the calm before the storm.

(Is this the cone of silence?)  
Your sleepy thoughts ask;  
Whose hips are whose?

<3<3<3

If it's one thing you learned in Riverside, Iowa, it's how to disappear.

The campus is sprawling and you find sidewalks that you know doctors don't travel and (don't forget the unfamiliar beds and cliché alleys) you spend nights in noisy clubs with questionable clientele that reasonable, southern gentlemen are too fucking old for. (You're a free bitch, baby.) And if he tries to find you, it goes unnoticed. If he tried at all, it didn't work. (You're a lost cause.) And slowly, you feel better.

(Like tempered glass.)

You'll never admit it, but it feels a bit empty. And you're tired of drinking vodka because it tastes funny. (Dried tears, bitter come and bloody towels.) And you miss him. That fucking bastard. (You eat apples for every meal and pray.) And you hate him. You're angry and never alone with anything but a cheap fuck and you miss his hands.

(That boy is a monster.)

It's strange, but you didn't realize it was happening. Before. (Before shattered Romulans, memories that weren't yours and cold coffins floating in the infinite depths of space). You didn't see the scalpel or the gloves, but suddenly you were cut right open and he's holding it in his hand. He's dipping it in sweet bourbon so that it tastes a little more like home. It went down so smoothly you didn't even notice it wasn't yours anymore.

(He ate your heart.)

So much for do no harm is all you can think with a stranger's cock down your throat until it burns like vomit (and shame) and the cold filth of the alley seeping into the knees of your jeans.

(There's a monster in your chest, where your heart should have been.)

<3<3<3

Four days pass. Meetings (memorials) go on. The world fucking tumbles like it should and you are... just fine. Gaila lets you stay in her room when Uhura (Nyota) is gone, but she doesn't let you fuck her like before. She looks at you with wide, sad eyes and holds you to her chest until she gets you to fall asleep without saying his name. (Don't tell anyone, Jimmy. This is a secret that's best kept swept underneath the bed.)

A week after you save the world they give you a ship.

"Kid, don't fuck this up now." Pike is a bitch but he feels like a ghost of your father, so you let him call you kid instead of Captain and you sit by his bedside for hours of countless tales and lessons. He doesn't mention your doctor, but he says it with his eyes, when he stares at your bloody lip or your bruised eye and shakes his head. (Space is harmless. Spinal cord eating slugs are not.)

It's all hush-hush. (Quick, before he gets the belt out.) Your promotion goes unannounced and you feel high (because you beat them).

Gaila pats your head and says, "I'm glad you'll be my captain." She pauses and tilts her head in a way that scolds. "I'm glad you'll be our captain." And you feel shame run hot and cold through your gut. She's the only non-Admiral who knows.

Her roommate cries for three nights in a row and you practically bleed out on Gaila's floor. (The sun that rises isn't yours. The ground underneath your feet is desert.) You want to cry, but you're glad she's doing enough of it for both of you. Part of you (selfish Jimmy) wants to crawl over to her and tell her that it's okay, that you'll get Spock to be your first officer and that Bones will come back (to love _you_ , to fuck _you_ , to fix _you_ ). The other part of you (the scattered part) wants her to feel it too, to bleed too.

(Share, Jimmy. Everyone wants you to share.)

At the end of the week is your commencement ceremony. (You've got 200 new messages but they're all blank.)

<3<3<3

You try not to sneer at the Admirals when you're promoted.

(An apple a day keeps the monster away.)

In the end you keep eye contact with (Admiral) Pike until everyone is fucking done talking.

"I am relieved," he says, and his hands are cold. You feel bile rise up your throat so you throw up some charm to keep everything else inside. To distract everyone from what's written all over your face. (Who the fuck killed your puppy, Jimmy? Bad dog.) You skip the party afterwards so that you can listen to your father's last minutes alive in the planetarium under old star charts that still have Vulcan breathing in solidarity (not singularity).

For the first time since you left earth, you feel in control.

(No one can hurt you if you're hurting yourself. Distract them with flashing lights and run.)

<3<3<3

It only takes one look at Gaila before she locks you in the test simulation room. You have a bag full of PADDs and have all weekend to sort through crew requests and a dozen (trillion) other things that come with captaincy. You sit in the captain's chair where you cheated (you pissed on her heart) and you breathe the first breath that matters in such a long time.

It's early Saturday morning and you know where he is. You hacked into his personal file five days ago. (Because it's the closest you're going to get.) He's got a disciplinary meeting today. For hauling your ass onto a ship. (For loving you.) For saving the world. Starfleet can be a real bitch, but you're almost glad he's getting an ass kickin' because maybe then he'll realize why you're so mad. (Why you love him and why he fucking let you down.)

There are dozens of names you don't know. Some crew members don't even send requests, they just send you their Starfleet ID to add to your roster. Names like Sulu, Hikaru; Chekov, Pavel A.; Gaila (she has no last name because she has no master); Scott, Montgomery and a few others in piles that remember bruised faces.

(He's not there. He's invisible.)

You accept requests and then tell heads of departments to contact people they want on their staff and send you a list. (There's no I in team. There's no Bones in team either.) You send a comm to Spock. You send twelve more before you leave the room.

CMO isn't blank. You accept a man (alien?) named M'Benga and sign your name.

(All's fair when you're losing the war.)

Then you head for Gaila's room. Uhura is waiting for you there with defiant eyes and even more dangerous fists. She kicks your ass up and down the room until both of you are bleeding artificial wounds. (It's salt and it's fucking everywhere.) She ends up lying beside you, both of you gasping for breath and tears rolling into your ears like wet, childhood fingers but there is no sign of free fall giggles.

"You don't have to come," you say with breathlessness. "You can go with him. You can go anywhere. I know where you belong."

She laughs. (Brittleness is a delicate thing.) You squeeze her hand.

"I'm coming with you, _Captain_."

"Alright," is all you say. You both stay lying there until Gaila comes back and makes you both eat plomek soup to satisfy your (masochistic) hunger.

(You see Vulcan sunsets in her eyes and you wish for a fraction of a second that Russian geniuses didn't exist.)

<3<3<3

"FUCKING BASTARD," is all you get before there's a fist across your face and a body slamming you into the hallway of the 5th floor, Starfleet Medical. (See, when you visit the sick? All you get is poorer.) Admiral Pike arches an eyebrow from where he's talking to the doctor that's doing his evaluation. Not your doctor.

(Why?) Because your doctor just split your lip and relocated your jaw. (If you want to please your captain, sink 'em low boys... raise 'em high.)

"You son-of-a-bitch," he growls out with fists wrapped in your shirt, solid enough to slam you against the wall.

You moan. (There's a monster in your bed.) Because you'll die if he lets go. You'll fall straight through the floor, five stories down and bury yourself there.

"M'Benga?" And he's whispering and he's furious and you laugh, deep cosmic belly laughs that have endless consequences and shaking, capable hands all over your body that fly in fury. (This feels like payback.) You roll your head back. (You want his love. You want his revenge.)

"You fucking bastard," he whispers again, and you open your eyes to greengreengreen skies. (Revenge is sweet like peach fuzz all over your tongue.) He's so fucking beautiful. He's such a fucking mess. (Peas in a pod and all that rot.) But he's yours. That's what he's saying, right? You want to clarify. You want to kiss him but all you say is:

"It's fucking bastard, Captain." You choke it out as you wrap your fingers around his neck and try to choke the love back into him. "I won't tolerate insubordination."

(Load. Safety off. Squeeze. Repeat.)

<3<3<3

There should be music and candles and possibly someone clapping. Instead there's only the broken light of a supply closet and Bones' mouth like a leaky seal, all over yours. You bruise when he slams you against shelves and things wrapped in protective, sterile plastic go flying. (Watch out for the needles because they spell addiction, Jimmy.) You don't care. This is the God of hyposprays. This is the end.

Bones is hot like lava all over your skin and there are clouds of ash in your lungs, but you suck harder until you can see (Wulcan) sunrises on his skin. (Not sunsets.) You're in a hospital supply closet with Bones' long fingers sliding inside of you while you hitch up your leg and lean and pull to get moremoremore of him inside of you. But he's a greedy bastard.

(You're drowning in bourbon, Jimmy. Get out before someone lights a match.)

Then, little by little, galaxies (black holes that sing with whole planets) cease to matter because Bones says your name, _like that_ and things fucking dissolve to just him. Hands like ambassadors are pulling and stretching until all you can see is the sun on Bones' tongue and stars on the tips of his fingers as he opens you wide enough for him to push in. (They want you to love the whole world.)

It's the worst sex you've ever had. Too much clothing in the way and the friction is burning your skin while Bones is pushing into your body at the most awkward angle that doesn't hit anything good inside of you, but you can't stop moaning, you're practically sobbing. (You're just a whore who doesn't ask for money, Jimmy.)

"Oh fuck, Jim," he says directly into your mouth, and you swallow it like an endearment. (Lick you open and chew you up.) But it's a supernova in your body because Bones is so hot inside of you and hot pressed against you and everywhere you gasp for air there is only the smell of his clothes, the swell of his cock and the sweet drip of honey out of his body and into yours. You're growing new bruises (like the flowers in the glove box) from the pressure of his sure hands and his sure lips over your teetering body. Moments of you well up and bloom like woven armor under inferno. (Eden ate the apple, honey and she's not that well off.)

You come untouched, Bones' own come being fucked into you with the last thrusts of his hips. All you can say is, "BonesBonesBones" in a pathetic tone that sounds exactly like surrender, but you don't care. (Georgia on your mind.) Not when he's holding you like he won't ever let go- not for a moment.

His lips are dry when he kisses you. (Oh captain, my captain.) And you smile and for the first time since spacedock (and someone else's cock) it feels real because Bones smiles back with dimples that make southern belles swoon and take off their panties over sweet tea and civilized conversation. It just feels like Scotty has reconnected the wires between your heart and wherever Bones keeps it. (This is the apple between your teeth.)

(It's okay, he's a _doctor_.) He'll keep it safe.

"Yeah," he says when you press your face against his.

"Okay," you say into his stubble. It scratches your face and you moan because this is life. (It's your life, not someone else's. These are your memories, Jimmy.)

You kiss, come dripping down your thighs in a completely unsanitary way, sweat drying on skin and in cloth, bodies pressed impossibly close that they blur into a messy flesh of love and desperation. You're in mad love. It's what your mother called it, mad love. And it's going to get you both killed.

You kiss to that, sloppy and raw, but hot and there and it's declarations, dammit. It's promising and confessions too.

(They want you to love the whole damn world. But you won't. You want it all boiled down to one man...)

This is your mason jar. These are your fireflies. (Your breakfast and your words.) But it doesn't seem so daunting now with arms like weeping willows surrounding your body and gruff, honest words in the shell of your ear that sound like fairy tales with complicated endings and more villains than heroes. (Drink from his heart spout, there's sweet tea there, there's bourbon here.)

A nurse knocks on the door, timid but angry and uncomfortable; "Everything okay, Doctor McCoy?"

Bones raises his eyebrow and you laugh, full bellied until all you can do is kiss that infuriating eyebrow. (You're a good boy, Jimmy.) Because yes, everything is where it should be. (In the palm of your hand, cities grow and walls fall.)

"Nurse," you say with all the swagger sex gives you. "It's Chief Medical Officer McCoy, now."

Bones laughs and presses his face into your neck, where you protect the sound from anyone else who might stumble on it. It's yours now.

(Roll down the windows, prepare to engage. Wrestle on a gas mask and give the yawlp of beloved men.)

"Buckle up."


End file.
